Give me the child till she's seven... 2019

A work in animation and shadow about identity, childhood and Jung's archetypes.

Click image to play film

Rain... 2019

Short animation exploring drawing on and through glass. Influenced by the work of Eastern European animators such as Yuri Norstein.

Surface decoration... 2019

Surface Decoration is a ten minute film exploring the value of craft and the relevance of opulence within the industrial landscape in which the work may have originally been crafted. The sound track sets the piece in time and place.

Surface decoration... 2019

Short clip

Surface decoration... 2019

Short clip

Surface decoration... 2019

Short clip

Outside inside... 2019

Swapping places - an outside hanging object with an inside hanging object - just for fun. This piece was a short challenge set by a member of the DACC 18/20 Virtual Retreat at the start of Lockdown.

'And not Singing but Screaming' is a short film made for domestic viewing with some multi sensory audience participation recommended. Smellovision. It is made from rough collage figures in a punk aesthetic to reflect cheap readily available materials - newspaper, colour brochures, glue, craft knives. Linder Sterling, a contemporary artist from the north of the UK used collage as subversive activity in the 1970s to explore feminist issues. She has recently included smells in her exhibition at Kettles Yard.

Research shows that memory is triggered most strongly by an olfactory stimulus. These short film projections explore our assumptions about others' emotions, mental health and safety during lockdown. Maybe there will be certain aromas that we will associate with this period of social disruption?

The artist recommends that you DO NOT WATCH THIS FILM until you have followed the instructions below.

1. Choose one of the other three films to watch - they are kitchen, bathroom and bedroom
2. Find something with a strong smell that you associate with that room in your home or someone else's. e.g. kitchen - a safe to sniff cleaning product, some herbs, coffee. For the bedroom you might choose your pillow, some makeup, perfume or maybe pajamas. For the bathroom perhaps soap, shower gel, toothpaste or a towel.
3. Try to activate the smell of the object while you watch your chosen film.
4. Now you are invited to watch the other projections each with a different olfactory trigger.
5. You could watch the original film now in a chosen place at home and find a smell to attach to the experience.

The bedroom projection casts the film across the pillows of a recently vacated bed suggesting that one of the screaming or singing women is close by and may return. Pillows are very intimate objects. Albrecht Durer made some exquisite ink drawings of pillows in 1493. Tracey Emin shared her unmade bed with us some 500 years later.

The bathroom projection is distorted by the curve of the bath tub and shows some reflections from the acrylic surfaces. There are noises of hand-washing, toothbrush action and water sluicing down the drain. We are vulnerable in the bathroom as we undress and are unprotected by our clothes. It is the room most usually closed or even locked. We see ourselves in mirrors and often judge what we see. Bonnard's paintings of his wife, Martha, in the bath suggest her fragility, in contrast many women have joyous memories of having fun bathing their children and playing with the water.

The kitchen projection onto the tiled splash-back of the cooker shows the workplace where many women produce and deliver food to families every day. There is a background soundtrack of crockery and cutlery suggesting that a meal is on its way or has just been cleared away. the kitchen can also be a dangerous place with tools, machinery, fuel - knives, flames, gas all available. The kitchen can be the hub of the family or a lonely place of toil. In the 1950s the British Kitchen Sink painters (all men ironically) depicted domestic scenes as they really were - social realism. John Bratby's 'Still Life with Chip Fryer' and 'Toilet' were dismissed by critics.

A short film - 2019